The second installment featuring a behind the scenes look at the Pittsburgh Steelers 2014 draft is now up on steelers.com and in this episode, the focus is on the scouting process, college Pro Days, pre draft player visits and free agency.
During this episode, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert explains the usefulness of BLESTO, the scouting service the organization has used for decades.
“BLESTO is actually an acronym for ‘Bears, Lions, Eagles, Steelers Talent Organization’ and it was formed back in 60’s so that teams could share the cost of scouting,” explains Colbert.
Head coach Mike Tomlin is also interviewed during the latest episode and he explains how his part of the scouting process takes part during the regular season.
“It starts back as far as the season for me in terms of gathering the information,” said Tomlin. “We travel particularly on Saturdays. There’s a lot of Saturday evenings where you’re in road hotels and so forth, and you casually watch college football like everybody else.
“When I do that, I notice who’s playing well, who’s potentially draft eligible, who’s dominating the big games, and really, if you really look at where information gathering starts, I would say it goes back as far as those Saturday afternoons watching college football.”
Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau is also interviewed in this episode and he weighs in with his thoughts on the pre draft visit process.
“That’s always been very helpful,” says LeBeau about pre draft visits with players. “To take the athlete off the video, if you will, and put him eyeball-to-eyeball, man-to-man, and look at him. See if you think he’s the type of athlete that you’re looking for, for that role you’re wanting him to fill with your football team.”
This series is really well put together and I wish that each episode was an hour-long.
